Crisis, change and creativity in science and technology: chemistry in the aftermath of twentieth-century global wars

This paper presents the organising ideas behind the symposium "Chemistry in the Aftermath of World Wars," held at the 23rd International Congress of History of Science and Technology, Budapest, 2009, whose theme was "Ideas and Instruments in Social Context." After first recounting the origins of the notion of "crisis" as a decisive turning point in general history as well as in the history of science, the paper presents war and its aftermath as a form of crisis that may affect science and technology, including chemistry, in a variety of contexts and leading to a variety of types of change. The twentieth-century world wars were exemplary forms of crisis, whose aftermaths shaped the contexts for decisive changes in modern chemistry, which continue to offer challenging opportunities for historical research. In discussing these, the paper cites selected current literature and briefly describes how the individual papers of the symposium, including the three papers published in this volume, approached these challenges.